Travelling conveyer device, particularly for underground mining



j'une 21, .1960 w. HEIDEMANN 2,941,630

TRAVELLING CONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING Filed July 1, 1957 7 Sheets-Sheet 1 June 21, 1960 w. HEIDEMANN 2,941,680

PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING TRAVELLING CONVEIYER DEVICE,

7 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed July 1, 1957 June 21, 1960 w. HEIDEMANN TRAVELLING CONVEJYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING 7 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed July 1, 1957 w TH H HUUM n 4 U u l 1 l UI HF I r Law w June 21, 1960 W. HEIDEMANN TRAVELLING CONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING 7 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed July 1, 1957 June 21, 1960 w. HEIDEMANN 2,941,680

TRAVELLING CONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING Filed July 1, 195-7 7 Sheets-Sheet 5 :9- 77 fm ewfan' WWI-EXIT Efiflmrwmua. i216 Lab-B 7 Sheets-Sheet 6 June 21,1960 w. HEIDEMANN TRAVELLING CONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING Filed July 1, 19 57 June 21, 1960 w. HEIDEMANN TRAVELLING CONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING Filed July 1, 1957 7 Sheets-Sheet 7 I l as lm/emar': EKLILALQMJQML TRAVELLING (IONVEYER DEVICE, PARTICU- LARLY FOR UNDERGROUND MINING Wilhelm Heidemann, Herner Strasse 234. Bochum, Germany Filed July 1, 1957, Ser. No. 669,249

Claims priority, application Germany July 5, 1956 8 Claims. (Cl. 214-8336) This invention relates to a travelling conveyer device, particularly for underground mining, which is movable to and from between a loading and an unloading station and which comprises a plurality of mutually overlapping container troughs or bunkers providing an uninterrupted hold which are pivotally interconnected in the horizontal and vertical planes, are supported on wheel sets, and in which the bottom is formed by a horizontallymoving, endless conveyer means, for example a doublechain scraper conveyer, which transports the loaded material through said uninterrupted hold from the rear load ing end to the frontal unloading end.

in travelling conveyer devices of this character it has been found difficult to fully utilise the full load capacity .."d .1ring the charging operation, so that at the end of this operation the front part of the conveyer device, i.e. the discharge end, is filled to an insuflicient height. ditiiculties arise from the fact that the load, which. is poured in loosely at the loading end, is not carried along by the conveyer means at the speed of the latter owing to the high degree of friction at the side walls of the container troughs or bunkers, so that the load in this vicinity, during the movement of the conveyer means, rolls around for a period of varying length until the pieces of this load have been caught up sufficiently to be conveyed at the full load height.

The drag on the forward travel thereby induced, particularly on the upper layer of the conveyed material, produces, when the loading process is completed, the previously-mentioned disadvantage that the container sections are not completely filled over a long distance preceding the discharge end of the conveyer device.

It is an object of the present invention to avoid this drawback, for which purpose the loading end section of the conveyer device has associated therewith, for the purpose of compacting the conveyed material, a stuffing or tamping device which protrudes into the free cross section of the loading container section from the end thereof, and is reciprocable therein during the loading procedure.

'As a result, the conveyed material or load, which is supplied either continuously or batch-wise into the loading zone of the conveyer device, is compacted in such a way that it is no longer able to roll around during the movement of the conveyer means but is carried along by the latter uniformly and at full load capacity.

A further advantage resides in the fact that the stufiing or tamping device assists substantially in relieving the endless conveyer means of stress, since its direction of operation is the same as the direction of movement of the conveyer means, and this stufling device is operative during those phases of the loading procedure in which the conveyer is exposed to peak loads at each start of the operation.

The stuffing or tamping device according to this invention may comprise a slide or tamping head which extends, widthways, across the whole of the free cross section and, heightwise, substantially intermediate of levels situated between the uppermost surface level of the truck These 7 atent "ice hold and a level intermediate said height of said hold, preferably located at least approximately within the upper half of the cross section of the rear load receiving truck. The slide or tamping head may, in fact, form the forward portion of a cover which is guided for longitudinal displacement in the end container section and guards operating means such as a pressure fluid cylinder or cylinders at least at the upper side thereof.

Depending on the quality of the conveyed material, the capacity of the stuffing device may be increased by associating with the end of the slide a push plate which is pivotally mounted thereupon for swinging about a horizontal axis, this plate suspending to a level at or below about half way up the height of the cross section of the container section and being maintained in a substantially vertical position during its forward movement towards the discharge end of the conveyer device, while, during its return movement, to be tipped up and trailed over the conveyed material.

The slide or tamping head may be either in one piece or of multipartite construction. Although it is to be recommended that the same, or the components thereof, shall be arranged to operate simultaneously across the complete width of the container section, and in the same sense, in individual appropriate cases the tamping head may be divided, for example composed of two sections which alternately move in opposite directions. Even where a slide plate or tamping head of unitary construction is being used, with the object of producing a uniform distribution of the load, it is advantageous to operate this slide plate by at least two pistons of pressure fluid piston cylinder assemblies instead of a single such piston, to prevent excessive loading or canting at one side.

The pressure fluid cylinder or cylinders may be hydraulic or pneumaticaily operated, and can be controlled manually or automatically.

Further objects and advantageous details of the invention, will appear in the following description of the accompanying drawings, in which,

Figure 1 is a traveling conveyer device in accordance with the invention used in connection with the advancing of the gallery in a mining operation, this device being here shown in side view,

Figures 2 and 3 are respectively a side view and a plan of the conveyer device on a larger scale.

Figures 4, 5 and 6 are respectively a longitudinal section (on the line IVIV of Fig. 5), a plan, and a cross section (on the line VIVI of "Fig. 4) of the loading end of the conveyer device,

Figures 7, 8 and 9 are likewise a longitudinal section (on the line VIL-VII of Fig. 8), a plan, and a cross section (on the line IX-IX of Fig. 7) respectively of the loading end of another embodiment of the conveyer device according to the invention,

Figures 10 and 11 illustrate two different operating phases of the stufiing or tamping device,

Figure 12 illustrates the connections for control of the fluid pressure cylinder of the stuifing device, and

Fig. 13 shows another control system for the tamping device.

In Figure l, a gallery, a tunnel or another room as required in underground mining and formed in the rock is designated 1.

Rock 2 or other material which has been broken up for example by blasting is loaded by means of a loading machine 3 into the conveyer device 4. The machine'3 in the embodiment illustrated is in the form of shovel loader 3a. This shovel 3a is pivotably connected to the loading machine 3 by a lever in such a way that the load picked up by the shovel is thrown over the loading machine rearwards into the conveyer device 4..

The conveyer device 4 is adapted to be propelled on rails 5 laid in the gallery and, in the embodiment illus trated, is pulled by a locomotive 6 coupled thereto at its frontal discharge end. The conveyer device is moved to and fro by the locomotive 6 between the loading station illustrated in the drawing and an often far away located unloading station which is not illustrated.

. The conveyer device 4" comprises in known manner a plurality of container trough sections or bunkers 7 which mutually overlap at their adjacent ends and are pivotally interconnected in the horizontal and vertical planes, each of them being carried on a wheel set 8 arranged in the locality of the coupling between them. The holds of said bunkers are continuously connected and this produces an articulated travelling bunker-train assembly the bottom of which is constituted by an endless circulating conveyer means 9, which in the embodiment illustrated, is a double-chain scraper conveyer container. The trough section or. bunker at the loading end is designated 7a and that at the. discharge end 7b.

A stuifing or tamping device 10 is provided in the rear end trough section 7a together with a short, inclined, endless conveyer 11 which serves to feed material thrown by the shovel 3a over the stuffing device 10 and into the first container trough section or bunker 7c. Means 12 for. driving the bottom conveyer9 is provided in the frontal discharge end trough section or bunkers 7b. The conveyed material is discharged by the conveyer 9 through the end opening 13 at the unloading station.

An embodiment of the conveyer device is illustrated on a larger scale in Figures 2 and 3. The short feeding conveyer Ill atthe loading endsection 7a of the conveyer device is here also in. the form of a double-chain conveyer, and is driven by a motor 14 through an appropriate transmission or gearing. To increase the loading. cross section the short conveyer 11 is provided laterally and at the rear end with spill plates 15.

The rear end of the loading trough section it: is mounted on a two-axle rotary bogie 16, whilst the forward end is supported by bearing-rollers 17 which have no track-engaging flanges on the rails. The appropriate adjacent ends of the floors of the container sections 7, 7a, 7b, 7c telescope to a small degree, and are coupled together through a cruciform articulated linkage 18, so as to be capable of relative rocking both in the horizontal and in the vertical plane. The wheel sets 8 are so secured in the region of the couplings 1% that each pair of overlapping ends of the containers'ections is supported in common on an axle.

The double-chain scraper conveyer 9 forming the floor of the conveyer device is driven by the motor 12, for example a compressed air operated gear motor, advantageously through a step-down gear unit. The driving spur gear 20 of the gear acts through a chain drive 21 on a driven wheel 22 which is, in turn, coupled to the chain roller 23. 24 designates a protective cover enclosing the driving chain 21, the spur gear 20, and the driving wheel 22. As shown in Figure 3, the chain roller 23 is driven at both ends.

The reversing roller 25 for the double chain scraper conveyer 9, arranged in the trough section 7a at the loading end, is mounted in a carriage 26 which is guided by rollers'at both ends runningiin guideways and is coupled through a draw means 27, for example a link chain, to the piston of a single-acting cylinder 28 which is supplied with pressure medium, preferably hydraulic, at one end.

This enables the reversing roller to be shifted and hence the draw chains 9a, 9b of the double chain conveyer, which are spaced from one another and connected by scraper flights 9c may be relieved of tension during the travel of the conveyer device, thus permitting the same to pass over curves, even of small radius. A pressure fluid reservoir 29 for the cylinder 28, a motor driven gear :pump 30 for the fluid, and a'manually-operable control valve 31 are provided.

The; stufling or tamping; device 10 comprises two hydraulic pressure fluid cylinders 32a, 325 which are arranged in parallel, side by side in a horizontal plane, the piston rods 33a and 33b associated with the pistons thereof being coupled to a common slide or tamping head 34, which extends over the complete width of the conveyor through section or bunkers 7a, 70 and is of a height corresponding substantially to the upper third of the free height of the container sections.

In the embodiment illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 a pivotable push plate 36 is articulated to the front side of the slide or tamping head 34 by means of hinges 35a, 35b said plate extending downwards for example to a point about half way up the height of the container section. When the slide 34 moves towards the discharge end of the conveyor device, the push plate 36 is held in a vertical operative position by the slide 34, Whereas, when the slide moves back, the plate tips up as it slips over the conveyed material.

Figures. 4, 5 and 6 illustrate the stufling or tamping device 10 on a larger scale, together with a different form of loading trough section 7a of the conveyer device. As particularly shown in Figures 5 and 6, the slide or tamping head 34 is provided with lateral extensions 37a, 37b which are longitudinally guided in guideways 38, thus preventing it from canting laterally during the compacting operation which it performs.

The piston rods 33 are provided at their leading ends with bifurcated heads 39 which pass through openings in the slide or tamping head 34 and are anchored at thefront side of. the latter by means of a bolt 40 which passes transversely through eyes in the head. The leading ends of the fork arms are covered by a U-shaped profiled iron 41 against contamination. To prevent loosening of the slide 34, fastening wedges of small inclination are wedged between the fork and the slide 34.

The cylinders 32a and 32b of the stufling device are covered at the upper side by a plate 43 which is coupled to the slide 34 and carried along with it during its reciprocating movement, these cylinders thereby being protected against contamination.

44 designates an additional guide for the piston rods 33a, 33b.

In order to prevent despoiling of the gallery at the locality where conveyed material is transferred from the short conveyer 11 to the first container trough section or bunker 7c of the conveyor device, this section 7c is provided at both sides with spill plates 45a, 45b having posts 46 which are pushed into retaining openings 47.

Pressure fluid is conducted to, and relieved from, the cylinders 32a, 32b of the stuffing or tamping'device 10 through conduits 48, 49 connected to the head ends of these cylinders.

The rear bunker section 7a is provided with a division 50, behind which the mechanism for tautening and loosening-the bottom conveyor 9 is installed and thereby protected.

As a modification of the tautening and loosening mechanism for'the conveyor 9 illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, the mechanism for this purpose in the embodiment according to Figures 4, 5 and 6 comprises arms 52 which are pivotally mounted at 51 and mount the reversing chain wheel 25. The mounting arms 52 are in the form of double-armed levers, the upper lever arm being coupled at 53, with the intermediary of a strong plate spring 54, to a piston'55 which can be moved in a hydraulic cylinder 56 byactuating a hand pump 57. Operation of the hand pump 57'causes the pressure fluid to pass from a pressure fluid container 58 via a conduit 59 into the cylinder 56, the piston 55 then pivoting the bearing arms 52 rearwardsabout the pivots 51 until the draw chains 9a, 9b of the double-chain scraper conveyer are sufficiently tightened. Before the conveyer device is being moved as a unit from the loading station, the cylinder 56 is exhausted, and the reversing chain Wheel 25 automaticallyuntensio'nsthe bottom conveyor 9.

.A further embodiment of the stufling device is illustrated in Figures 7, 8 and 9. Two cylinders 32a, 32b which are of bifurcated form at their rear ends are mounted, for pivoting in a horizontal plane, by means of pivot pins 60 on a transverse beam 61 which is anchored to the sides of the container section. At the leading end, the pistons are articulated by pivot pins 62 to forks 63 which, in turn, are secured to the inner side of a plungerlike housing cover 64, the frontal end of which forms the slide or head 34 of the stuffing or tamping device. The cover 64 is slotted at its side walls and guided by rollers 65 mounted in the side walls of the container trough section 7a. At the leading end the cover 64 is additionally guided by flanged parts of the walls 50 and 66 of the casing. A vertical bracing wall 67 between the cylinders 32a and 32b serves to additionally brace the upper and lower sides of the cover 64.

The action of the stuffing or tamping device in the embodiment according to Figures 7, 8 and 9 is apparent from Figures and 11, the former showing the slide or head 34 in the forward operating position, and the latter illustrating the slide or head in the draw-back position. During the reciprocating travel, the load conveyed over the short feeding conveyer 11 is continually compacted in the direction of the discharge end of the conveyor device thus being densified, and a mutual bonding action between the parts of the conveyed material is brought about to such an extent that the material is carried uniformly along by the bottom conveyer 9 of the conveyer device at the full load height.

In the forward position of the slide or tamping head, as is illustrated in Figure 10, the conveyed material drops from the short feeding conveyer 11 upon the upper side of the cover 64 and is scraped off when the slide returns, thus dropping the remaining conveyed material beneath the stuffing device. During the next operative stroke of the stufling or tamping device the conveyed material is compacted, together with the further conveyed material which has in the meantime dropped off the feeding conveyer 11, towards the discharge end of the conveyer device.

Figure 12 illustrates the control connections used to operate the pressure fluid cylinder 32 of the stuffing or tamping device, where use is made of an automatic reversal of the pressure fluid cylinder by limit trip devices operated by the stufling device itself.

The pressure fluid is admitted through the conduit 68, which incorporates a manually-operable valve 69. The pressure fluid passes from the valve 69 through branch conduits 70 and 71 to the two limit valves 72 and 73, and thence through return conduits 74 and 75 to a control cylinder 76. At the same time a conduit 77 connects the admission valve 69 to the control cylinder 76 also. Further conduits 78 and 79 both lead to a return conduit 80, which takes the pressure fluid back to the reservoir. Admission and discharge conduits 81, 82 are connected to the ends of the pressure fluid cylinder 32 of the stuffing or tamping device, these conduits connecting the cylinder 32 to the control cylinder 76.

As shown in Figure 12, while the valve 69 is open, the pressure fluid flows both into the limit valves 72, 73 and through the conduit 77 into the control cylinder 76. The conduit 81 of the cylinder 32 is supplied with pressure fluid from the cylinder 76, and as a result the slide 34 and the pivotable push or head plate 36 are pushed forward by the piston end 33. An abutment 83 is disposed at the rear side of the cover plate 43 on the slide 34, and this shifts the piston 84 of the limit valve 73 against the spring 85. As soon as the collar at the leading end of the piston 84 has bridged the mouth of the conduit 74, the pressure fluid flows from the conduit 70 through conduit 74 to the left-hand end of the control cylinder 76, so that the control piston 76a is shifted to the right. In this position of piston 76a, the pressure fluid admission conduit 77 is connected to conduit 82, so

that the working piston in the cylinder 32 is pushed back from the front end. During this movement, an abutment 86 on the slide 34 strikes the piston 87 of the limit valve 72 and shifts it rearwards against the action of a spring 88 until the conduit 71, under the pressure of the pressure fluid, is connected to the conduit 75, and the control piston 76a of the control valve 76 moves again into the opposite end or limit position, so that. the operating cycle is repeated.

The chamber of the pressure fluid cylinder 32 which, at any time, is at exhaust, is connected through the conduits 78 and 89, and conduit 80, to the pressure fluid reservoir (not shown), so that this fluid can readily flow back.

Figure 13 shows a control system for the stuffing or tamping device, adapted for manual reversal.

The pressure fluid here passes through a conduit 89 from a reservoir (not shown) and is under the pressure of a not illustrated pump, which for example is driven electrically or otherwise. After a manually-operated valve 90 has been opened, the pressure fluid flows through a conduit 91 and through a conduit 94 or 95 to one end of the cylinder 32, depending on the position of the hand lever 92 of a four-way cock 93. When the hand lever 92 is in the position indicated in full lines, the pressure fluid flows through the conduit 94 to the leading and of the cylinder, whilst the pressure fluid exhausted from the other end of the cylinder passes through a conduit 95 and the four-way cock 93 into a conduit 96 leading back to the reservoir. When the hand lever is in the position 9212, the pressure fluid flows in the reverse direction, whereas in position 92a of this lever a blocked situation is produced in which the piston of the cylinder 32 remains static in the position which it has reached at that time.

While certain embodiments of my invention have been shown and described in detail; it will be well understood that my invention may be differently embodied without avoiding the scope of my appended claims:

What I claim as my invention is:

l. A curve conforming bunker train assembly particularly for underground mining comprising in combination a plurality of mutually articulated and interconnected loading trucks providing an uninterrupted hold for the load; an endless conveyer extending at the bottom of said trucks to transport material from the rear load receiving truck to the frontal load discharging truck; driving means for said conveyer; stuffing or tamping means at the rear of the load receiving truck compacting material loaded into said truck in longitudinal direction of the train intermediate of levels situated between the uppermost surface level of the truck hold and a level intermediate the height of said hold; and operating means actuating said tamping means.

2. In a curve conforming bunker train assembly according to claim 1, a cover plate attached to and rearwardly extending from said tamping head above said operating means, and guiding means for said cover plate on the side walls 'of the rear bunker.

3. In a curve conforming bunker train assembly according to claim 1, a cover plate attached to and rearwardly extending from said tamping head above said operating means; said rearward extension of the cover plate exceeding the reciprocated displacement of the tamping head; and guiding means for said cover plate on the side Walls of the rear bunker.

4. In a curve conforming bunker train. assembly according to claim 1 actuating means constituted by pistonfor the load; an endless conveye'r extending at the bottom of said trucks to transport material from the rear load receiving truck to the frontal load discharging truck; driving means for said conveye'r; stuffing or tamping means at the rear of the load receiving truck compacting" material loaded into said truck in longitudinal direction of the train intermediate of levels situated between the uppermost surface level of the truck hold and a level intermediate the height of said hold; operating means actuating said tamping means; and a loading device associated with the rear truck and delivering material thereinto in front of said tampin-g means.

6. A curve conforming bunker train assembly particularly for underground mining comprising in combination a plurality of mutually articulated and interconnected loading trucks providing an uninterrupted hold for the load; an endless eonvey'er extending atthe bottom of said tniclis to transport material from the rear load receiving truck to the frontal load discharging truck; driving means for said conveyer; stuffing or tamping' means at the rear of the load receiving truck compactingmateri'al loaded into said truck in longitudinal direction of the train intermediate of levels situated between the uppermost surface level of the truck hold and a level intermediate the height of said hold; said 'tamping means com- 2 prising a reciprocable tamping head having a Width conforming to the width of the hold of the rear truck; and operating means reciprocating said tampi'ng head.

7. In a curve conforming bunker train assembly according to claim 6, a tarnping head "composed of at least two sections arranged side by side, said section's altern'a'tely reciprocating in opposite directions; and operating means reciprocating said sections.

8. A curve conforming bunker train'assembly particularly for underground mining comprising in combinert ion a plurality of mutually articulated and interconnected loading'trucks providing an uninterrupted hold for the load; an endless conveyer extending at the bottom of said trucks to transport material from the rear load :receiving truck to the frontal load discharging truck; driving means for said conveyor; stuffing or t'ampin'g means at the rear of the load receiving truck compacting ma terial loaded into said truck in longitudinal direction of the train within the upper half of the truck hold; said tamping means comprising a reciprocable tamping' head operating substantially within the upper half of the hold 'of the rear truck and-having a width conforming to the width thereof; a push plate having substantially the same width articulated at its upper edges to the tamping head in front thereof and extending downward below the lower edge of the tamping'head; and actuating means reciprocat'ing said tampin'g head.

References (Jited in the the or this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 9 53 Leitenberger aaaaaaaa Apr. 18, 1 9 11 l,-9,20,5QO Garcia et al. ....a n Aug 1, 1233 2,674,364 Cartlidge a.; n- Apr. 6, 1954 FOREIGN PATENTS V 747,143 Great Britain Mar. 28, 1956 

